


Being Me Being You

by hazel_3017



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Bodyswap, F/M, M/M, Magical Realism, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 11:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4785512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazel_3017/pseuds/hazel_3017
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In retrospect, Derrick knows Sidney isn’t actually the worst guy to have changed bodies with, far from it. It could have been worse. So, so much worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being Me Being You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theladyscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyscribe/gifts).



> Disclaimer: This work is a piece of fiction.
> 
> For theladyscribe! to celebrate her 1-year anniversary in hockey fandom!

* * *

  **Derrick**

* * *

It takes Derrick an embarrassingly long time to notice the heavy weight of an arm across his waist and the persistent, lazy thrust of someone’s groin grounding against his ass.

 

Still half unconscious with sleep, Derrick finds himself zeroing in on the feeling of the dick pressing against him. It’s huge. The kind of size to it Derrick has only seen in porn or the glimpses he’s caught of Geno in the locker room. 

 

_The hammer_ , Maxime had nicknamed it lewdly, laughing uproariously at Derrick’s scandalised blush. “Bet he’s a grower too!” he’d said, cackling gleefully until Ian had chucked a wet towel in his face.

 

That had been five months ago now and Maxime is no longer there, no longer a part of their team, but Geno is.

 

Geno is there, always will be, which is why Derrick doesn’t think too much of it when he hears Geno’s voice say, “You awake? You want?”

 

Derrick has dreamt of his teammates before, albeit in a hockey context usually (he discounts some rather unsettling dreams about Olli. It’s not a crush, it’s _not_.), and he’s still not awake enough to find it weird that he is apparently having a dream about Geno _outside_ of hockey.

 

That is until dream Geno must take the absent grunt Derrick makes as consent that he _does_ want, because suddenly the far-away feel of a dick pressing against him is suddenly very real, and said dick is sliding between his cheeks. His naked cheeks.

 

“What the fuck?”  


 

“Yes,” dream Geno says. “I’m fuck you, just how you want.”  


 

Derrick is so far beyond freaked out he’s not even a little bit embarrassed by the high-pitched squeal leaving his mouth.

 

He scrambles to get away, an elbow slamming into the very real Geno’s face as he tries to gather the sheets around him to cover his nudity when he rolls out of the bed. Derrick is seriously alarmed to realise that he has no idea where he is or why he’s naked.

 

“Why am I naked?”  


 

“The fuck! Sid!” Geno curses, clutching at his nose. “The fuck is wrong with you?”

 

Derrick is momentarily distracted by the guilt of having caused Geno such obvious pain that he forgets his outrage for a second, and it takes him a while to realise that Geno just called him Sid.

 

“Wait. I’m Derrick. Your teammate? I play defence?” 

 

Training camp hasn’t even started yet. Maybe Geno has forgotten him? Derrick doesn’t want to tout his own horn here, but he’s pretty sure he made enough of an impression during his time with the big boys that Geno should remember him.  


 

He’d even let Geno borrow his stick. It had broken a slump for him! Surely that was worth remembering.

 

Geno is still Geno though. And Russian. He’s more than a little eccentric, Derrick has come to learn; Geno forgetting who he is wouldn’t actually be the strangest thing to ever happen. 

 

“What you talking about?” Geno asks distractedly, busy checking his nose for blood and finding none.  


 

Thank God. It would seriously have sucked to be the guy to have broken Evgeni Malkin’s nose.

 

“Sid, what’s wrong? Why you acting strange?”  


 

“ _I’m_ not acting strange! You are! You keep calling me Sid. I’m Derrick, Derrick Pouliot and–” Derrick cuts off. “Is this a prank?” he asks, squinting at Geno suspiciously. “Am I being pranked right now?” He wouldn’t put it past…whoever had put Geno up to this. He is pretty sure Geno is only a pawn and that the real culprit of the prank is someone else.  


 

Except Geno isn’t reacting as if it’s a prank. Instead, he looks taken aback. Concerned, even.

 

“You okay? Head hurt? Should call doctor?”  


 

He makes his way out of the bed. He’s as naked as Derrick, and Jesus, his dick is just as huge as it had felt like, pressing up against him. Derrick hurriedly turns his back to him.

 

“Get some clothes on!” he hisses out. 

 

Naked teammates are only okay in a locker room. Outside a locker room, Derrick has no desire to see any naked teammates whatsoever. Except Olli. Maybe.  


 

Fuck.

 

“Sid?” Geno says again, and he sounds scared is the thing, legitimately scared, and this isn’t funny anymore.  


 

“Why do you keep calling me that?” Derrick demands. “I’m not Sid! I’m Derrick!” He turns back to glare at Geno, pleased to see he’s dressed in a pair of loose sweats. 

 

He stops up short, though, when he catches sight of the row of picture frames on the dresser behind Geno.  


 

They’re almost all of Sid. Sid and Geno, with Geno’s arm around his waist, pressing a kiss into Sid’s grinning face. Sid and his parents, Sid and his sister, Sid and a bunch of kids – Derrick recognises them as Estelle and Alex and Duper’s brood. 

 

“I don’t– What?”  


 

He startles when he feels gentle hands cup his face, tilting his chin up to meet Geno’s eyes.

 

“Let me take you to hospital, Sid. Please.”  


 

Derrick thinks that might be a good idea, actually, is about to say as much, but never gets the chance as Geno’s cell starts to ring.

 

Geno heaves a weary sigh. He lets his hands fall away from Derrick’s face and walks back to the bed to get his phone off the nightstand.

 

“Who is it?” Derrick asks when he sees Geno’s brows shoot up in surprise, but loses interest even before Geno can answer, because Derrick, having calmed down just a little, is suddenly made aware of the sound of his own voice. Or the lack of it. In fact, his voice sounds like –

 

“It’s Pooh,” Geno says, glancing at the caller ID before accepting the call. “Pooh Bear? Why you call?”  


 

Derrick stares at him, watching as Geno’s eyes grow round and his jaw drops. He says something in Russian, and whatever the person on the other line says in response has him snapping his neck around to blink owlishly at Derrick.

 

“Pooh Bear?” he exclaims incredulously.  


 

– Sid’s.

 

* * *

** Sidney **

* * *

 

Sidney knows something is wrong even before he catches the first glimpse of himself in the mirror –  his first clue might have something to do with how upon waking, he finds himself uncomfortably spread out on the floor of a small bathroom, his mouth tasting of something foul  and his head pounding with the worst headache he’s had in a while. **  
**

 

Things aren’t made better by the immediate need to vomit, or the reality of it a couple of seconds later.

 

“Fuck,” he mutters to himself, wiping a hand carelessly across his mouth as he flushes the toilet. He’s hungover; he knows the signs of a night out and can taste the remnants of beer and something else on his tongue. Vodka, maybe.

 

None of which makes sense. It’s been years since Sidney went out and got truly blasted. Not since his concussion. Sidney has never held his liquor well, and the feeling of being sick and hungover reminds him too much of the hell he went through then.

 

Besides, he’s pretty sure he went to bed after a quiet night in with Geno last night; he’d taken advantage of Geno’s return to Pittsburgh until he’d fallen asleep, naked and wrung out with pleasure.

 

So what the fuck happened in between then and now?

 

He struggles to get to his feet, frowning at how his limbs feel too long and his body too heavy. Even his centre of gravity feels out of balance.

 

When he finally manages to get upright, clutching at the nearby sink to keep himself steady, it takes him a second before he reconciles that the face staring back at him in the mirror above the sink is not his own.

 

He takes a deep breath and starts counting backwards from ten in an effort not to freak the fuck out… _3, 2, 1._

 

He is Sidney Crosby. He knows who he is, knows his name and his past and his face. Knows it very well, in fact, and the face staring back at him, the body he currently finds himself in, is not his own — and as fond as Sidney is of Derrick Pouliot, he has no desire to inhabit his body.

 

“What the hell did you do, Pooh?” he asks the empty bathroom, wincing at the sound of his voice; it feels foreign coming from his mouth.

 

“Okay. Let’s just not panic,” Sidney tells himself, even as he feels the panic bubbling under the surface of his calm demeanour. Nothing good ever comes from panicking.

 

He needs a game plan. Goals and objectives and a strategy to see it through.

 

He needs to locate Derrick and his body. He needs to do it soon before anyone stumbles across him, or before Geno does something all three of them will regret. _Jesus_.

 

Then they need to figure out what the hell happened and how to fix it. Really, that last thing is the most important part, Sidney feels.

 

“Fuck,” he says again. 

 

How had this even happened? It was obviously the result of some kind of magic, but to actually make someone switch bodies? It's not exactly child's play. Shit like this only happens in books and in the movies, except it is happening now, to Sid. It’s not a dream or some kind of hallucination like he has half hoped for since he first jerked into consciousness on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor. No. It’s happening, and Sidney has to deal with the reality of it.

 

“Geno,” he says. He needs Geno. Geno will make it better, if not fix the wrong.

 

He pats at the pockets of his pants and could cry in relief when he feels the tell tale bulge of a phone in his back pocket.

 

He’ll have to talk to Pooh about that. It’s a shit place to store his phone.

 

Punching in the digits of Geno’s number is easy. It’s one of the few numbers he knows by memory alone, and there is no code to stop him from calling.

 

Stupid.

 

He’ll have to talk to Pooh about that too.

 

God knows an unrestricted phone is just a disaster away from happening.

 

“Come on, baby,” he says as he waits for Geno to answer the call. “Pick up, pick up.” 

 

Geno is notoriously bad at answering or returning calls. Only Sidney and his mother are the people deemed worthy of his attention most of the time, and that’s only if he’s carrying his phone on him.

 

Sidney has stumbled over Geno’s phone more than once, carelessly abandoned as Geno gets distracted by something new or shiny or both.

 

He hears the familiar sound of his call being accepted, and Sidney is off and running before Geno can get a word in edgewise.

 

“Baby, it’s me. It’s Sid. Something happened and now I’m stuck in Derrick’s body and I think he’s in mine and I don’t know what happened and I’m freaking out and—” He breaks off, taking a deep breath to calm himself. It’s early still. Geno isn’t usually firing on all cylinders until much later in the day. Especially on an off-day where there is no pressing issues to force him out of bed.

 

“Geno,” Sidney says, slow, giving Geno time to process what he’s saying. “I’m scared.” His voice is shaking, and for a second, he thinks Geno will hang up on him. Is afraid Geno will think it a prank and tell him to fuck off.

 

A few seconds tick by. Sidney closes his eyes, praying.

 

“Sid?” Geno asks hesitantly. “Is you?” He rattles off a long sentence in Russian, finishing with a phrase Sidney has come to rely on when they’re miles apart from each other and the distance between them feels too great to bear.

 

Sidney takes a shuddering breath, swallowing a couple of times before he says, “I love you too.”

 

There's some kind of rustling over the line and muffled voices in the background before Geno focuses back on the call.

 

“Sid,” he says again, but it’s not a question this time. He knows now.

 

Sidney feels something tight inside his chest unclench just a little bit. Some of the panic settling now that he knows he’s not alone.

 

Geno will know what to do. Geno will make it better.

 

He has to.

 

* * *

** Evgeni **

* * *

Evgeni feels he can be excused the generous helping of vodka he doctors his tea with that morning. If ever there were need for something a bit stronger, this was the occasion for it.

 

He endures Sidney’s judgemental look as he raises the cup to his mouth, and then downs the whole thing in one go when he remembers it’s Derrick staring at him in silent disapproval.

 

He’s just wearing Sidney’s skin.

 

Fucking hell.

 

“Sit down,” he tells him, nodding at one of the kitchen chairs opposite himself. He can’t stand to see him hovering anxiously in the background, wary and hesitant; Evgeni is programmed to react a certain way when it comes to Sid — even if it is Derrick in Sidney’s body.

 

Evgeni has spent years learning to read the minute expressions on Sidney’s face and the small, barely there reactions in his body language. He’s put a considerable amount of effort into getting to know what Sidney looks like when he’s scared or upset or in need. He knows when Sidney needs him, it’s instinct imprinted on him, entirely reactionary, and none of that disappears even with the knowledge that it’s not really Sidney sitting before him.

 

Well. It is and it isn’t.

 

Fucking magic.

 

“Sid will be here soon,” Evgeni says, watching as Derrick fidgets in his chair. He makes Sidney’s body look clumsy and graceless, in a way Sidney has never been, not even as a child.

 

Sidney has always had superb mastery of his limbs and movement; it’s part of what makes him such an excellent athlete, his discipline and grace. Looking at him, looking at Derrick exceeding the efficiency and economy of movement that has been part of Sidney for as long as he’s known him, Evgeni finds he needs something to do, anything to distract himself from the _wrongness_ of the Sidney before him.

 

He pours himself another cup of tea, vodka free this time, and downs that as well. He closes his eyes for a second, wishing he was still asleep, wishing he had still just arrived back in Pittsburgh, to Sidney’s welcoming arms and sweet kisses and what has become as much home to him as Russia and Magnitogorsk.

 

Derrick clears his throat awkwardly, Sidney’s voice somehow higher than usual when he says, “So, uhm, you and Sid, huh? How— How long have you been together?”

 

Evgeni looks at him, considering. “Not long,” he says. He doesn’t want to explain how _not long_ actually means a decade of unspoken feelings, subtle flirting, and idiocy on both their parts. It’s no one’s business but their own that Sidney and Evgeni have orbited each other helplessly ever since Evgeni first arrived in Pittsburgh, that they didn’t get their shit together until Worlds, a drunken night of celebration and commiseration all mixed up in one. It had lowered their inhibitions enough to cast aside the last of whatever hesitancy and responsibility had held them back the last decade or so.

 

Evgeni wanted Sid, and Sidney wanted him back.

 

For the first time in years, Evgeni hadn’t cared to remember why that was a bad idea.

 

Convincing Sidney to come with him on a spontaneous getaway had been easy after that. Falling into a relationship had been even easier.

 

Maintaining it long distance had been hard.

 

“Oh,” Derrick says. He swallows, losing a bit of his awkwardness as he looks around curiously. “But this is Sid’s house, right? Do you live here with him?”

 

He doesn’t. Not yet. A few items made their way from his house to Sidney’s the first time he came back this summer, his tablet, a couple of video games, a bottle of vodka and a drawer of clothes.

 

This time, Evgeni intends to move in entirely. As long as Sidney will have him.

 

“Sorry. I don’t mean to pry. I just. I had no idea you were a couple, you know.”

 

Evgeni snorts. No one did. Not even Duper or Flower or Tanger.

 

The fact that Sidney has managed to keep a secret from them is astonishing in itself. Hardly a day goes by without Sidney texting one or all of them.

 

Evgeni used to be jealous of that, but he knows better know. Sidney gives a lot of himself to a lot of people, but he saves the best for Evgeni.

 

The part that Evgeni sees is a part Sidney doesn’t share with anyone else.

 

That part is his and his alone.

 

“Geno?”

 

Evgeni rushes to his feet at the sound of the new voice, foreign but familiar all the same, something about the cadence of that single word unmistakably Sidney even if the tone is too low and too flat.

 

Sidney doesn’t have a key on him in Derrick’s body, and Evgeni has already been to unlock the door so Sidney could walk straight in when he got there, but now he hurries out of the kitchen and heads for the front door, meeting Sidney halfway, not even hesitating before he’s putting his arms around him, holding him tight.

 

He’s just a little too tall. His hair is too long and his shoulders not wide enough. His physical appearance does nothing for Evgeni, but behind Derrick’s too-young face and his still-lingering baby fat is Sidney and his beautiful mind and passionate spirit, and that means everything.

 

“It’s okay,” he whispers against Sidney’s cheek — too round, too smooth. “It’s okay. I got you.“

 

“We’ll fix this, right? Tell me we’ll fix this.”

 

“Yes,” Evgeni says, not even willing to entertain the thought that whatever magic this is, it’s irreversible. It can’t be.

 

Evgeni will find a way to fix this. If he has to move heaven and earth, he will fix this.

 

He pulls back from their embrace, holding Sidney at arms length as his eyes roam across his face in search of possible injuries. He looks fine, considering. Maybe a little pale, a little drawn, but nothing that can’t be cured.

 

Sidney sighs, his shoulders moving with it, and the mannerism of it is so very _Sid_ it gives the illusion of Derrick’s body being older than it is.

 

“We fix,” Evgeni says firmly. They’ll get them switched back into the right bodies. They have to. They _need_ to.

 

“Come. Let’s find Pooh, da? Make him tell us what he do wrong.”

 

And then they can make things right.

 

* * *

** Derrick  **

* * *

 

The arrival of Sid has Derrick’s defences slamming back into place.

 

He’s been able to relax somewhat, listening to Geno’s brief confirmation of his relationship with Sid, analysing what the hell _not long_ means and wishing he was somewhere else entirely. Preferably in his own skin.

 

At least the arrival of Sid means his body is in the immediate vicinity. All they have to do now is figure out how to make the switch.

 

He climbs to his feet and follows Geno out into the hall at a considerably slower pace, nervous about how Sid will react to seeing him.

 

Nervous about he himself will react to seeing his own body. It’s strange, but physically, he doesn’t feel disjointed at all. He wears Sid’s skin as easy as he wears his own.

 

Derrick wonders if that hasn’t more to do with Sid than himself, though, if the muscle memory Sidney has spent two decades perfecting is so ingrained into his body that it transcends mind and spirit.

 

Derrick has nowhere near such a fine control of his own limbs. He wonders if Sidney can tell.

 

He probably can.

 

“Pooh Bear,” Sid says when he sees him, and Derrick has to stop up short because  _that_ , that is strange.

 

The tone of his voice and the barest hint of fondness in that stupid nickname is remarkably Sid, but the actual noise is all Derrick. It’s strange, so, so strange. The face staring back at him is him but not; it can’t be a true reflection of himself, not when that face is offering him a small smile and Derrick can feel his own facial muscles frozen in place. There’s an unsettling lack of mirroring.

 

Geno looks between the two of them. He seems conflicted. His arms are wound tight around Derrick’s body, but his hands twitch at the sight of Derrick in Sidney’s form. Derrick thinks Geno might be correctly reading the fact that he feels about three seconds away from a major freakout, thinks even with the knowledge that it’s Derrick in Sidney’s skin, Geno is so wired to react to the sight of him, he wants to comfort him even now, even when Sidney is already in his arms, wearing Derrick’s face.

 

Fuck. This is so confusing.

 

“I—” Derrick says and stops. He thinks he should probably apologise for inconveniencing them, for messing up. Only, Derrick isn’t sure he is at fault here. He can’t remember much from before he woke up with Geno pressed up against his back and his arm slung over his waist, distressingly naked.

 

He knows there had been a party; a few of the younger guys had been there—Olli, Oskar, Beau—celebrating the approach of a new season and fired up to make the roster out of camp.

 

Derrick isn’t sure what, but he knows something must have happened at that party to cause all this.

 

“I think,” Sidney says after a long, awkward pause, “that you better tell us what you were up to last night, and we’ll take things from there, okay? We’ll fix this.”

 

Derrick sighs in relief, glad to let someone else take charge. 

 

He tells them everything he knows. He lets Geno herd them back into the kitchen and sits down by the table, talking and talking even as he watches bemusedly as Geno hovers around Sid, reaching out to stroke a hand through his hair or squeeze his shoulder in comfort only to send guilty looks Derrick’s way immediately after.

 

As if Derrick in Sidney’s body will accuse him of—

 

Derrick isn’t even sure. Of cheating? Of Sexual harassment? Both? It’d work either way, under the circumstances.

 

“Was there anyone else there? Anyone knowledgeable enough in magic to have done something like this?” Sid asks when Derrick has finished telling them about the party.

 

“No, I don’t think so. I mean, we were at Olli’s. It was just the guys.” 

 

Derrick can’t even remember having drunk all that much or being drunk at all, but he must have been. All he remembers is arriving at Olli’s, of greeting the other guys and Beau handing him a beer. Everything after that is a blur.

 

Sid nods. “Right. We need to see Olli. Maybe he knows something.” He nods again, clearly forming a strategy in his head, and it’s a little freaky to see his own face so determined, to look at him, Sid, _Derrick_ , and have his conviction be so strong it’s almost tangible, practically written across his face, and think, _this is someone I want to follow._

 

He finds himself wondering, inanely, if that look will ever cross his face again? Will Derrick in his rightful body ever inspire such confidence?

 

“Come on. Let’s go,” Sidney says, and they do, because Sid is their captain and following him is what they do, what they always will do.

 

It doesn’t matter what skin he’s wearing, Derrick realises.

 

Sid is Sid no matter what.

 

Derrick is not so sure the same applies to himself.

 

The drive to Olli’s place is a quiet one. Derrick sits in the backseat and stares out of the window; he can’t bear to look ahead, to see where Geno’s fingers are tangled with Sid’s, _Derrick’s_ , resting atop the gearstick.

 

He feels so confused, a little like he’s intruding even though it’s _his_ body, and a little indignant, because _it’s his body_.

 

Mostly he feels jealous. Derrick is self-aware enough to recognise the feeling for what it is. He wishes he had someone – Olli – to help him through this, like Geno is doing for Sid.   

 

When they arrive at Olli’s apartment complex and Geno lays siege to the call button on the intercom as if he has a personal vendetta against it, it’s Beau’s voice that greets them.

 

“Geno! You’re back again,” he says, delighted, the bright light of the surveillance camera above the door letting them know Beau can see them. “When did you get back?”

 

“Open the door, Sunshine,” Sid says. He sighs exasperatedly.

 

“Derrick! Where the hell did you disappear off to last night? Oskar said he thought you caught a cab back to the hotel, but I tried calling a little earlier and you didn’t pick up the phone. I even had the hotel call your room number. No luck.”

 

“Yeah, I, uh, I left early this morning.”

 

Beau’s voice goes quiet over the intercom for a second. “I was asking Derrick, Sid,” he says, because he can see as well as hear them and he must have seen what looked like Sidney answering in place of Derrick.

 

“I _know_ ,” Sid grits out, the sound far more guttural in Derrick’s voice than Derrick has ever managed himself. “And Pooh was the one answering.”

 

Beau goes silent again.

 

“Well, fuck” he says eloquently.

 

He buzzes them in.

 

* * *

  **Sidney**

* * *

 

Beau wrenches open the front door before they even get a chance to ring the bell. He takes one look at Sid in Derrick’s body and says, “Holy shit! It’s really true! You really are Sid, aren’t you?” He seems amused by it all.

 

Sidney nods absently, distracted by the guy hovering just behind Beau’s shoulder. He knows the guilty party the second he lays eyes on Oskar.

 

“I’m so sorry!” Oskar blurts out in his accented English when his eyes meet Sid’s. He is looking the very picture of misery and visibly wilts when Geno takes a menacing step towards him.

 

“What you do?” Geno growls at him, easily brushing Beau to one side as he forces his way into the apartment.

 

“Geno,” Sid says quietly.

 

Geno is breathing heavily in his anger, but he stops in place, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

 

Sidney follows in after him, gently squeezing his arm in comfort to make him calm down. He looks around the apartment; it’s an open floor plan, littered with empty pizza boxes and beer bottles. Looking towards the kitchen area, Sidney can see an assortment of vodka bottles, mostly empty, on the counter. Olli, though, is nowhere in sight.

 

He shakes his head. “Where’s the host?” he asks, turning to look at the entertainment centre by the far-end wall. He half expects to see Olli passed out on the couch.

 

“Crashed out in the bathroom,” Beau says. He shrugs at Geno’s incredulous snort. “We kept doing shots and Olli can’t hold his liquor.”

 

Sid closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “They’re underaged, Sunshine. You shouldn’t be plying them with alcohol!” he says, but Beau looks unconcerned.

 

“Dude. Like you weren’t drinking underaged. I’ve heard the stories. Besides, _they're_ not underaged anymore.”

 

Which is true and which Sid already knew. He's just pissed off. 

 

He shares a look with Geno, and can't help but blush at the filthy grin he sends him. It’s true they’d been young and dumb once too; he’s lost count of how many times they’d snuck away from some kind of celebration or another, making out in dark corners and keeping a lazy eye out for any of their teammates, giggling stupidly whenever someone walked past and they almost got caught.

 

Young and stupid indeed, with no idea what they were doing. To think it had taken them ten years to wise up.

 

“At least we had the good sense not to mix magic and alcohol,” Sidney says pointedly, looking first at Beau and then at Oskar. “All right. Out with it. What did you do?”

 

“I’m so sorry!” Oskar repeats. He drags a hand across his face roughly, wincing when Geno glares at him again. “It wasn’t even proper magic. It was just a stupid rhyme! I didn’t think anything would happen.”

 

“Oh, no,” Derrick says, and when Sidney glances at him, he can’t help but stare at the grimace on his face, at the way Derrick in Sidney’s body seems to just collapse in on himself, sinking to the floor in what might be embarrassment.

 

Sid can’t even tell. Embarrassment is not an emotion he’s used to feeling, much less strong enough to wear it on his face.

 

“I think I remember this,” Derrick continues. “Were we doing movie spells?”

 

“Oh, my God. Tell me you didn’t!” Sidney groans, truly hoping the boys had been smarter than that.

 

Most people aren't at all proficient in magic, but there are those with the barest hint of the gift, able to make something change colour or texture. Small, harmless things. In later years, it had become a popular game to quote different hollywood-derived spells and hexes from shows such as Bewitched or movies like Harry Potter in an effort to emulate their effects. Mostly, it was completely harmless—unless someone _is_ magical inclined, like Oskar and Olli, in which case the quotes became actual spells with often unpredictable results.

 

Like body swapping.

 

Sid is going to kill them.

 

“Which movie?” he grounds out, and it’s Geno, this time, to comfort him. He takes Sidney’s hand in his, slowly stroking his thumb over Sid’s knuckles. It helps. Sidney takes a deep breath before asking again. “Which movie did you quote?”

 

“Freaky Friday.”

 

Of fucking course they did.

 

“Verbatim?”

 

Oskar shakes his head. “No,” he says miserably. “We didn’t have the movie, so we sort of just, freestyled.”

 

“Freestyled?” Geno asks, sounding about as incredulous as Sidney feels. “You _freestyled_?”

 

“Badly,” Beau offers cheerfully, and Sid does not appreciate this amount of sass at all.

 

“You hush,” he tells him, keeping a reluctant smile at bay when Beau lifts his hands in surrender before miming a zipper across his mouth. Sid rolls his eyes. “You,” he says, turning back to Oskar, “tell me _exactly_ what the rhyme was.”

 

“I don’t remember.”

 

There’s a long pause.

 

“You _what_?”

 

Sidney bares his teeth, taking a step towards Oskar before he knows it. Only Geno’s hold on his hand keeps him back.

 

“Whoa there!” Beau says, and now, finally, he loses his cheer, growing serious as he eyes them all carefully. “I was recording the whole thing, okay? I have it all on my phone. No need to take any drastic measures.”

 

He pulls out his phone before Sidney has time to decide if he should hit him over the head for not showing them the tape when they first arrived, or thank him for making the tape in the first place.

 

“Here,” Beau says, holding the phone out for Sidney to take.

 

He feels Geno press close to him, resting his chin on Sidney’s, or rather _Derrick’s_ shoulder as he presses play.

 

The picture is shaky and the sound is tinny and loud through the phone’s speakers. It’s obvious from first glance that they’re all well and truly blasted, including Beau, who keeps turning the camera on himself, preening before the lens.

 

Geno bursts out laughing. “Think you supermodel, Sunshine?”

 

“Shut up!”

 

Sid shushes them impatiently, eyes glued to where Olli appears on the screen, eyes glassy and hair a sweaty mess. He’s saying something in Finnish, laughing uproariously to himself before Oskar elbows him in the side and reminds him to speak English.

 

“Freaky Friday!” he says with conviction and takes a healthy swig of his beer. “Much better than H.P., man.”

 

“Hey!” Beau’s voice says from behind the camera. “Harry Potter is amazing! How dare you!”

 

Sidney hears himself whimper, and it takes him a second to realise it’s Derrick. He looks over his shoulder at him, lifting a brow in question.

 

Derrick shakes his head. “I remember this,” he says right before the Derrick on the tape points at an empty beer can and with much ceremony says, “Wingardium Levio _sa_!”

 

The beer can makes a tiny tremor, but otherwise make no movement—definitely doesn’t levitate.

 

“Idiot,” Geno murmurs into Sidney’s shoulder. He sounds fond, though.

 

The Beau on the tape applauds his effort, but Olli and Oskar boos, heckling him until the Derrick demands that they do it if they can do it so much better, which of course they can. Europeans, and Scandinavians especially, have always paid more attention to magic than North Americans.

 

“Okay, okay. But _not_ Harry Potter. Freaky Friday!” Olli says again.

 

“That’s where they switch bodies, right? Oh! Can you switch genders too?”

 

“ _Dude_. Boobs!”

 

Olli shakes his head. “No, no gender changing,” he tells Beau. “You have to work with what you already have, and besides, you’re not supposed to _want_ to change bodies. You’re supposed to _not_ want to change bodies. That's how it works!”

 

The Derrick on the tape nods knowingly at this, and Sidney already dreads what he’ll say next, certain that whatever it is will be phenomenally stupid.

 

“I can see that,” Derrick on the tape says. “Like, can you imagine being in Sid’s body? That ass! It must be so heavy!”

 

On the tape, the guys giggle madly in agreement, and Sid pauses the video, counting backwards from ten twice before he feels calm enough to say, “You fucking idiots.”

 

Goddammit, but he hates it when he’s right.

 

* * *

** Evgeni  **

* * *

“I really am sorry,” Derrick says again, and when Evgeni meets his eyes in the rearview mirror, it’s Sid’s eyes staring back at him.

 

Unfair, he thinks, feeling his anger dim slightly. He’s never been good at resisting Sidney’s puppy dog look, or his more subtle version of it, because Sidney is under the illusion that pouting is beneath him and insists he doesn’t whine, ever.

 

Derrick wears the look surprisingly well.

 

“It’s okay, Pooh,” Sidney says flatly in Derrick’s voice while turning in his seat to look at himself. At Derrick.

 

Evgeni’s grip tightens on the wheel. He’s exhausted. The disconnect of reacting on a purely instinctual level to Sidney’s form and the need to stay close to the Sidney in Derrick’s body is wearing at him. It’s so fucking confusing; if Horny doesn't know the magic to fix this, Evgeni doesn’t know what he’ll do.

 

“You sure Horny will know what to do?” 

 

He sees Olli nod in the backseat, still looking hungover and worn from the night before.

 

Good, Evgeni thinks meanly.

 

“Yes,” Oskar answers for him. “And if he can’t, Malin should. She’s from a family of witches, and her grandma’s a mage. They’re really well known back home.”

 

Oskar seem less miserable now that they have a plan. He’d been the first to usher them out of Olli’s apartment when Sidney had demanded for them to reverse the spell only for Olli, finally emerging from the bathroom, to inform them he wasn’t sure how.

 

“Patric!” Oskar had said. “Patric will know!”

 

And that had been that. They’d left Beau behind and had, amazingly, managed to cram three hockey players into the backseat of Evgeni’s Porsche before making the drive to Horny’s house.

 

“This better work,” Sid mutters next to him when he parks the car outside the house.

 

Evgeni turns to look at him, capturing his hand in his and raising it to his lips. He presses a soft kiss to his knuckles, unable to to do anything more while Sid is still in Derrick’s body.

 

“It will,” he says firmly. “Will work, or we’ll find different way.” He stares into Sidney’s eyes, the Sidney in Derrick’s body, and wills him to believe him when he says, “We _will_ fix this.”

 

“Okay.”

 

Evgeni nods, satisfied. He looks over his shoulder at the boys in the back, finding them with their eyes politely averted, except for Derrick, who looks back at Sid and Evgeni with something like jealousy.

 

Or longing, Evgeni corrects when he catches the way Derrick’s gaze slides to where Olli is hunched in on himself, his body tilted against one side of the car. 

 

“Let’s go.”

 

He exits the car, bending to pull the lever on the driver's seat to make it slide forward, watching with grim amusement as the guys struggle to climb out of the car. 

 

“Mean,” Sid accuses him in low tones, but he’s smiling, and Evgeni merely shrugs.

 

“Deserve it,” he says. “When being so stupid.”

 

He follows Sid to the door, the guys trailing behind them obediently. When they ring the bell, it’s Malin who answers the door, little Isabella on her hip.

 

Evgeni reaches for her immediately, and Malin is gracious enough to hand her over with only the smallest of sighs, a little exasperated and a little fond. 

 

“Hello, princess,” Evgeni coos at the toddler, smiling when she giggles at the Russian words. “Aren’t you looking pretty today? Yes you are. So, so pretty.”

 

“Geno! Focus,” Sid says, as if he’s not leaning into Evgeni, smiling at Isabella and stroking a gentle hand through her baby-fine hair, blonde like her parents.

 

“Uhm, guys?”

 

Evgeni looks up from Isabella to see Horny standing behind his wife, eyeing them all bemusedly. He looks especially curious about how closely Sid and Evgeni are standing. What looks like _Derrick_ and Evgeni.

 

“What are you doing here?”

 

“I’m Sid,” Sidney says bluntly, straightening to his full height and reaching back to drag Derrick next to him. “This is Pooh. Derrick.” He turns to glare at where Olli and Oskar are guiltily shifting on their feet. “They did some magic yesterday. Drunk. And now our bodies are switched.”

 

“Hope you can fix,” Evgeni adds. He feels that part is rather important.

 

Horny and Malin share a startled look. “You better come in,” Horny says. “I’ll put the coffee on.”

 

Swedes are about coffee the way Russians are about tea, Evgeni has come to learn, but not even a couple of cups of black coffee can fix this mess.

 

“Stupid!” Malin hisses at the boys when Sidney has told them the story. She turns to glare at Oskar, barking something at him in Swedish.

 

Oskar nods, shamefaced.

 

“Can you fix?” Evgeni asks anxiously. He feels Sidney reach out to grip his hand, squeezing once.

 

Malin lifts her brows at the intimacy between them. She shares another look with her husband before she says, “Luckily, the boys aren’t so proficient as they’d like to think. The magic is not permanent; it will fade with time.” She looks between Sid and Derrick, her eyes narrowed in concentration. “I can already see it happening.”

 

Evgeni sighs in relief, feeling some of the anxiety leave him at the knowledge that this is reversible. He’ll get his Sid back as he was.

 

“There’s nothing you can do to, uh, rush the process?” Sidney asks hopefully, and on his other side, Derrick perks up.

 

Malin shakes her head firmly. “No. This is volatile magic and unpredictable. It’s based more on instinct and luck than anything else. If it had been a specific spell I could maybe counter it cleanly, but like this—” She breaks off for a second, turning angry eyes on Olli and Oskar. “Adding new magic to an already unstable spell is dangerous. I have no idea how it would react.”

 

“Okay. No magic it is.”

 

“How long do you think this is going to take?” Derrick asks hesitantly. He’s been very quiet since they found out he’d been the one to first bring Sid into their foolish shenanigans.

 

“It’s difficult to say. Could be a couple of hours or a couple of days.”

 

“A couple of  _days_?”

 

Malin nods regretfully.

 

“You should try sleeping,” Horny offers. “Magic works faster when you’re asleep, right?” He looks at Malin questioningly.

 

“Yes. When you’re awake, the magic is slowed down by competing factors; it essentially extends the length of the spell. Sleeping is actually a good idea.” She grins at her husband proudly, leaning over to smack an affectionate kiss on his cheek.

 

Horny smiles at her stupidly, and Evgeni snorts.

 

“Okay, so just need to go home and sleep. Is good plan.”

 

Sidney hums. “We should probably drive the boys back to Olli’s first. Derrick, do you want to come home with us? I’m not sure we should split up before we’ve changed back.”

 

He poses it as a question, but Evgeni doesn’t give Derrick much of a choice; he’d much rather keep an eye on Sidney’s body until this whole thing is over. He clamps a hand down on Derrick’s shoulder and growls out menacingly, “Yes, should do,” though the effect might be somewhat ruined by the way his thumb strokes over the skin at Derrick’s nape quite on its own, the way he always does when he touches Sid like this.

 

Only it’s Derrick in Sidney’s body.

 

 God, but Evgeni is so ready for them to switch bodies already.

 

They say their goodbyes before taking their leave. Horny grabs at Evgeni’s elbow, holding him back as the others get into the car.

 

“So you and Sid, huh?” he says quietly. “Who else knows?”

 

Evgeni sighs. This isn’t how either of them had wanted their friends and teammates to find out. “Pooh does. Maybe Sunshine and the idiots in the backseat too. Maybe not. Might be distracted. This more important, da?”

 

“No one else?”

 

“No. Not been together long. Want time for just us, you know.”

 

Horny nods. “No one will hear it from me.” He pulls Evgeni into a patented bro hug. “I’m really happy for you guys.”

 

Evgeni looks at where Sidney is patiently waiting in the passenger seat, his mannerism so uniquely his own even while stuck in Derrick’s body.

 

Evgeni smiles, big and bright. “Am happy too.”

 

* * *

** Derrick  **

* * *

  

When Derrick wakes the next morning, it’s to the feel of someone pressed up against his back and a heavy arm slung across his waist.

 

He’s up and out of bed in three seconds flat.

 

_Not again_ , is his first thought, but then he’s pushing long strands of hair out of his eyes and the act is so familiar he doesn’t realise he’s fully clothed and back in his own body until Sidney barges in through the door, hardly sparing Derrick a glance before he’s climbing onto the bed. 

 

Derrick watches, wide eyed, as Sid settles over Geno’s lap, leaning down to press butterfly kisses all over his face and chest. His naked chest.

 

“Babe,” he says, his voice more cheerful than Derrick has ever heard. “Babe! I’m back. G! Wake up.”

 

Derrick hears Geno’s disbelieving, “Sid?” and hightails it out of there when Geno’s disbelief quickly evaporates and he grabs onto Sid like he’s afraid he’ll disappear on him.

 

Derrick can hear a high-pitched moan as he closes the bedroom door behind him. He’s pretty sure it is Sid.

 

He can’t begrudge the fact that Sid and Geno went to sleep together the previous night, even if Sid had still been in Derrick’s body. Geno, especially, looked like he needed the closeness. It had been a tense day of napping with no result until they’d finally called it a night for real.

 

Derrick is so, so unbelievably happy it worked, he can’t quite put it into words.

 

He breathes in deeply, feeling settled back in his own skin.

 

In retrospect, Derrick knows Sidney isn’t actually the worst guy to have changed bodies with, far from it. It could have been worse. So, so much worse. 

 

It had still been strange to haul around that ass, though.

 

He feels his back pocket vibrate and fishes out his phone to see Olli’s name across his screen. Derrick smiles.

 

“Hey!”

 

“Derrick? Is that you? Please tell me it’s you! I mean, Sid is great and all, but I’d much rather have you in your own body and I’m _so_ sorry about all of this!” Olli pauses for breath, stuttering a little when he says, “Not _have you_ have you, I mean—”

 

“Olli,” Derrick says, laughing. “It’s me. The magic wore off, thankfully.” 

 

“Thankfully,” Olli mimics, unbearably soft, and Derrick finds himself blushing.

 

“So.”

 

“So.”

 

It’s a little awkward, a little embarrassing, but Derrick feels giddy inside, a rush of excitement coming over him the longer they stay on the line, just listening to each other breathe.

 

“Do you wanna come pick me up?” he asks eventually.

 

“I’ll be there in fifteen.”

 

Derrick grins.

 


End file.
